Background
This story was inspired by the true story of a snowboard trip I had some years back. Fortunately nobody ended up dead - but it was touch and go for a while! (I'll post the original story as captured by my friend Neal Bircher at some point). After booking a group holiday online to a chalet in the Alps, we were all unnerved by our hosts. Over a few beers we realised that no friends really knew where we were and the booking would probably be untraceable…
And so Dead Air was born. The concept was easy to see – a killer in the mountains offing a group of teenagers one by one in very sporting and accessorized fashion! Think "Nightmare at the X-Games" and you can see the potential for an MTV styled, action packed, testosterone filled, music-blasting 90 minutes. I still think it's a great concept and one that I will continue to pursue.
The first draft was difficult to get right and suffered from being too close to what really happened to really drive a story. Before the re-write I entered it into the UK Film Council's 25 Word or Less scheme for the Horror genre and was a very close runner up (with many rooting for Dead Air!). I decided to rewrite it anyway. I took a step back, ripped most of it apart which takes us closer to "Scream on Snowboards"…
